Planning a Budget?Your Top Priority Should be Retirement Provision

So, you're planning a budget. Sooner or later we are all forced to do
that. And the last thing young couples want to hear is that their
retirement provision should be their top priority!

I was there
myself. Many years ago. I guess I thought I was going to earn an income
forever! The hard reality is that retirement arrives sooner than any of
us anticipate.

Did you know that monthly paid employees get the opportunity to save a
portion of their salary income for retirement only 480 times?

I
woke up to the fact that my retirement provision was hopelessly
inadequate when I had only 180 months left. If you try to catch up at
age sixty, you'll have only 60 months left to do it.

If you have
more than 300 months left and in your budget your top priority is
retirement provision, it will become a lifestyle and you'll probably be
one of the few who made adequate provision for retirement.

According
to the U.S. Census Bureau only 4 out of 100 people who start working at
age 25 will, by age 65, have adequate capital stowed away for
retirement.

Don't get me wrong. You can still achieve it when
you've got only 180 months left. We certainly achieved that. But it
called for drastic measures. We had to change our lifestyle. We had to
stop being consumers. We had to develop a minimalistic mindset.

Initially
we pitied ourselves. Until we visited dear friends in Southern
California. As long as we knew them they have been extremely wealthy by
our standards. They just moved into the dream house they planned
themselves.

How did they do it? And then the penny dropped. Their
décor and furniture were functional but always minimalistic. Their
lifestyle was not consumer orientated. And they have been maintaining
this lifestyle since they were a young couple.

By the time we had
to take the drastic measures mentioned above, they had already saved
enough for their retirement and were able to 'splurge' in their
minimalistic way!

Most people have other priorities when they get
to the stage of planning a budget. Do yourself a favor and make your
budget priority retirement provision over the long term.

For help with your budget and a budgeting spreadsheet, please visit to our discussion on budgeting tools.